Perceived Biggest Advantage and Disadvantage of Public Health Spending
The biggest gain from public health spending lies in the program able to provide vital support to various public health concerns that pose significant and immediate health problems to the population. For instance, public health spending has increased in the current COVID-19 pandemic, whereby the government has directed a lot of funds to save the situation. During the outbreak of communicable diseases, the government increases the expenditures in the public health to contain diseases outbreak (Marton, Sung & Honore, 2015). When the government does so, it highly assists in promoting health disparities by helping all people irrespective of economic background. That way, the low-income communities, which are usually most hurt by pandemics, gain the highest health and economic benefits from the increased public health spending. Overall, public health achieves a lot by preventing diseases, promoting health, education, and such through increased spending.
On the other hand, the most significant disadvantage for public health spending regards duplication of the expenditures, which is majorly a result of market failures. Rosenthal (2014) observes that while Medicare and Medicaid constitute the most vital spending categories for the national budget, many market failures prevent the massive spending from realizing the intended results. The funds lost could instead be useful if directed to another expenditures like education, infrastructural development, and others. In this regard, reforms necessary to ensure that wastages from market failures reduce for better benefits from public health spending. In my view, the expansion of patient-centered medical and nursing homes can reduce the issue of market failures and duplication in public health by far. More so, there should be considerable reforms in the health insurance and delivery system so that it will be possible to fix the wastages channels, thereby improving the economy as a whole.
References:
Marton, J., Sung, J., & Honore, P. (2015). Does more public health spending buy better health?. Health services research and managerial epidemiology, 2, 2333392815580750.
Rosenthal, M. (2014, February 19). Public health and the U.S economy. Havard School of Public Health. Retrieved June 12, 2020, from https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/public-health-economy-election/
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